22 Feb 2015

Shoshong residents on Wednesday, February 18 argued that their village has grown over the years hence the need to upgrade their post office.

They said during a kgotla meeting addressed by Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Ms Botlogile Tshireletso that the post office has also gone through transformation by expanding its mandate thereby resulting in more people using it as one of the service centres. 

The Village Development Committee chairperson, Mr Gaethusi Gopalamang said the post office was now servicing many villages in addition to Shoshong.

Services offered by BotswanaPost include old age pensioners’ payments, constituency league payments of and vehicle licenses renewals. 

Residents also requested government to develop their village so that they can access most services in their village instead of travelling to Mahalapye.

Mr Rabangwe Leadikwa said despite Shoshong being one of the oldest villages; it was still accessing most of services from Mahalapye, citing services such as application of ‘Omang’.

Mr Leadikwa said by now the village should be having Rural Administration Authority Centre (RAC). 

He said lack of RAC also affected villages that were near Shoshong such as Mokgenene. 

The residents also called for the establishment of an umbrella VDC as the village populace had grown. 

Mahalapye assistant district officer, Mr Fredericks Ndjavera told the residents that though they wanted their post office to be upgraded, it was not included on the District Development Plan (DDP) that was drawn recently.

Mr Ndjavera said during the DDP consultation meetings, the residents never said anything about the upgrading of the post office. 

A person living with disability, Mr Abolotse Balemisi expressed gratitude that Ms Tshireletso in her address touched on people with disabilities saying it showed that they were also part of the community.

He told assistant minister that he opted to work for Ipelegeng instead of being supported by social and community development.

Other residents also said after being empowered by Ms Tshireletso about ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, they would deal better with ministry employees especial social workers servicing them. 

For her part, Assistant Minister Tshireletso told the residents that though Poverty Eradication Programme was coordinated from the Office of the President, it was implemented by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.

She said some packages would be tailor-made to a particular area after being informed by suggestions from Batswana. ENDS